Adaptive Virtual Reality Exergame for Individualized Rehabilitation for Persons with Spinal Cord Injury

Typical exergames used for rehabilitative therapy can be either too difficult to play or monotonous leading to a lack of adherence. Adapting exergames by tuning various gameplay parameters based on the individual's physiological ability maintains a constant challenge to improve a participant's level of engagement and to encourage the physical performance of the user to achieve rehabilitation goals. In this paper we developed a pilot exergame using a commercially available virtual reality (VR) system with varied and customizable gameplay parameters and accessible interface. A baseline task VR tool was previously developed to determine an individual player's initial 3-D spatial range of motion and areas of comfort. We observed the effects of adjusting gameplay parameters on a participant's physiological performance by measuring velocity of motions and frequency and effort of targeted movements. We calculated joint torques through inverse kinematics to serve as an analysis tool to quantitatively gauge muscular effort. The system can provide an improved rehabilitation experience for persons with tetraplegia in home settings while allowing oversight by clinical therapists through tracking of physiological performance metrics and movement analysis from mixed reality videos.